Thiruvananthapuram: The Vice-President, Jagdeep Dhankhar on July 6 condemned the remarks by senior parliamentarian and former finance minister, P Chidambaram that “New laws were drafted by part timers.” Describing his words as inexcusable insult to the wisdom of parliament, VP questioned “are we part timers in parliament?”
Taking strong exception to the senior Congress leader’s remarks to an English daily, VP further said. “I do not have words strong enough to condemn such a kind of narrative being set brough. A member of parliament being labelled as a part timer, ultimately it is a parliament that is a last source of law formulation.”
Appealing to Shri Chidambaram to withdraw his “derogatory, defamatory and highly insulting observations to the Members of the Parliament,” VP asked him to hold himself accountable to his conscience.
Wishing that such thing had not taken place, Dhankhar cautioned that we need to be on guard “when informed minds knowingly lead you astray.” If you say something different which you don’t believe in everyone will believe you because you are having elevated position, he added.
Addresses the 12th convocation of IIST in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala today, Dhankhar remarked, “This morning when I read a paper and informed mind who has been finance minister of this country, a parliamentarian for long and a Member of Rajya Sabha currently. He stunned me because I took great pride that this parliament has done a great thing. It had unshackled us from colonial legacy by giving three laws that our epochal dimension from “Danda Vidhan” we have come to “Nyaya Vidhan”.
Highlighting that every Member of Parliament had the opportunity to contribute when these three laws were being debated in the House, Shri Dhankhar lamented, “This honourable gentleman, a distinguished member of parliament has a great background as finance minister. With heavy heart, I am sharing with you, he did not use his lung power, he gave total rest to his vocal chords while debate was going on.”
Disapproving the non-participation of other legal luminaries in Parliament during the debate on the three laws, VP said, “Not only he, his distinguished colleagues from my legal fraternity, senior advocates did not come forward to help the nation. They had an opportunity to make this point in the parliament. It was a failure on his part to perform his constitutional duty and obligation and how can we count on such a man, speaking in high decibel trying to seek resonance from people only to unsettle mechanism.”
Dhankhar said that he was shocked beyond words and asked everyone to be beware of minds that deliberately run a narrative trying to run down our nation, demean our institutions and taint our progress. They don’t see the lighting on the wall, they engage in criticism for the sake of criticism, he added.
